St Teresa of Avila was the first woman to be named a Doctor of the Church in 1970, just over 50 years ago. It was only then that the Church acknowledged that God could teach through the life and writings of a woman. She was both a woman of prayer and action and, just over 500 years after her birth, she still has an immense influence on
the life of the church.
She entered the Carmelite monastery when she was 21, at a time when things had become very lax and lukewarm in the convent, and she lived quite a superficial life of prayer. But at the age of 39 she was jolted out of her complacency into a new sense of fervour and resolved to reform both her own life and the way that religious life was being lived in the monasteries.
Two of the many gifts of her life are her writings on prayer and her sense that women and their experience of God need to be taken seriously – at a time in the church when that was not the case.
It was a time when church authorities discouraged women from any life of prayer that involved meditation or contemplation, believing that women were not capable of
these kinds of prayer. She decided to write a book called “The Way of Perfection” especially with her sisters in mind. She wanted them to discover through prayer their own value and worth as beloved of God and to believe in the truth of their own experience of him.
Pope Francis says that she is a teacher of prayer. She had a personal and lively relationship with Christ and, although she was a mystic, talked about
prayer in a very simple but profound way: “being on terms of friendship with Him who we know loves us.” She didn’t only pray at particular times of the day but was in spontaneous dialogue with Christ. She spoke of how God initiates in the relationship and longs for our response of love. She said: “Here is what a friendship with our dearest companion, our holiest God is like. In it intimacy is always possible and can’t be stopped, except on our side, for God is always open to us."
A funny story about her, which may be apocryphal, is that as she was making her way to her convent in a fierce rainstorm, she slipped down an embankment into the mud. She crossly said to God: “If this is how you treat your friends, it’s no wonder you have so few!” Only someone very close to God could speak with such familiarity and temerity.
Is my
prayer a time of coming to be with Christ who is my friend and companion – perhaps even lover?
Am I making time and space to be alone with Christ? Do I talk with him as I go through the day, as a dear friend?
